by Leanne Shear
The central tent was now a Pearls Girls beehive—swarming with thin blonds alive with the buzz of self-congratulation over what a “fabulous” job the committe had done on organizing the event and how generous they all were to help the less fortunate. James was nowhere to be seen. I was about to check the dessert tent where François Payard himself was whipping up Grand Marnier soufflés and caramelized Alsatian apple tart tatins when I noticed Abigail at the silent auction table inscribing her name and bid on a trio of Me&Ro bangles.
“Abigail!” I called out to her.
She looked surprised to see me. Nervously she dropped her pen and straightened her dress. “Cassie! I thought you’d left.”
“Have you seen James?”
“What?”
“James. Have you seen him?”
“Uh . . . I don’t know, I . . . uh . . .” It was the first time I’d ever heard a Pearls Girl stutter. They were usually perfectly poised and articulate. “I . . . uh . . . I think he might have left. I saw him walking toward the parking lot a couple of minutes ago.”
“Thanks,” I said, darting out of the tent and sprinting down the beach. My mind was racing faster than my feet. Why would James have left without saying good-bye? What was happening? What had I done? I arrived at the parking lot panting, relieved to find that his Range Rover was still there. The passenger door was open and I could see him standing behind it. “James!” I called breathlessly, avoiding broken glass as I walked across the pavement in my bare feet.
He looked up, alarmed. His face was white and a map of guilt spread slowly across his features.
“Oh . . . Cass,” he stammered.
“Are you leaving?” I asked desperately. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I have to go to work soon, but I couldn’t leave without—” My sentence came to an abrupt halt as shock strangled the words in my throat. There was someone sitting in the passenger seat. I’d recognize those platinum locks anywhere.
“Hi, Cassie,” Rosalind purred. Her slim legs were dangling out of the car, her short skirt barely covering them. She made no move to get up when she saw me, and a smile played at the edges of her perfect, heart-shaped mouth, as she wrapped her arms intimately around James’s neck.
I was the first one to look away, but not until a sickening, feverish feeling almost knocked me off my feet. What the hell had I just stumbled on?
James cleared his throat. “Uh, Rosalind? Could you give us a minute here?”
“Sure.” She slid out of the car and leisurely strolled away, the click of each Jimmy Choo heel on the pavement driving a stake right through my heart. She stopped only a few feet away and leaned against a vintage Mercedes, examining her nails, watching us out of the corner of her eye. I looked back and forth between her and James in horror.
“What the fuck is going on, James?” I shouted. I was cursing and yelling, which meant I was drunker than I thought. I felt that damn spiny lobster crawl back up my throat to lacerate the back of my tongue.
“I don’t know, Cassie. I’m just really confused right now . . .” His voice trailed off lamely.
“Confused about what? I don’t understand. I thought everything was going great. What the hell happened?”
He looked down at his hands—the same hands that only days ago had been holding my face while he kissed me and told me he loved me—and said nothing.
“Answer me, James. What the fuck is going on?”
“I said I don’t know. I have a lot on my plate and . . .”
“A lot on your plate? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe I just need a little time or . . .”
“Time for what?” I burst into tears of fury and confusion.
“Why don’t I come over tomorrow and we can talk when you’re not so drunk.”
“I’m not fucking drunk!” I wailed.
He looked at me sadly and shook his head. I watched in shock and disbelief as he left me standing there and made his way back to the clambake with Rosalind.
“Wait! Where are you going?” I yowled.
He didn’t turn around.
I stood there, dumbstruck, in the parking lot—the pain and humiliation was unbearable. I finally stumbled over to Travis’s Galant, which was parked two rows from James’s Range Rover. Still crying hysterically, I somehow managed to start the car and ram the gear into reverse, gunning out of the parking space.
I swerved the vehicle sharply to the left, skidding on sand and sideswiping a garbage can. My knuckles were colorless from clenching the steering wheel, and my heart was zipping around my rib cage as though I’d just finished competing in a triathlon. I made a left on Ocean Avenue and barreled down the narrow road toward Montauk Highway, the canopy of trees, the perfectly coiffed hedgerows, the masked mansions a colorful, indecipherable blur around me.
As I suspected, Montauk Highway was bumper-to-bumper. I hate the fucking Hamptons, I thought.
The scene at James’s car haunted me. I didn’t even know what it was that had just happened. Had we broken up? Maybe something else was bothering him, and Rosalind was just consoling her old friend. Or were they somehow involved with each other? I didn’t know what to think. I was in shambles.
It took me nearly an hour to drive the roughly five miles to Spark, where the parking lot was already teaming with Jaguar XKs and Bentley GTs. By that time the tears had stopped and I was completely numb. Surprisingly, I was only twelve minutes late. I swerved the car into a parking spot in the back by the Dumpsters. I held my breath against the stench of the trash and sprinted inside.
“You’re late,” Jake said reprovingly.
“Shut up!” I snapped, tearing right past him and the tempest of activity already swarming around the bar. I took the stairs two at a time to the employee bathroom. Once inside, I collapsed on the toilet. I wanted to cry or scream, but nothing came out, so I sat there, shell-shocked, staring mutely at the tiled wall, only dimly aware of the minutes ticking by. Finally I put on my stupid uniform for the last time and checked myself out in the mirror. I looked like a wild woman. My hair had frizzed in the ocean breeze and my bloodshot eyes looked like they were straining against their sockets. I splashed cold water on my face, dabbed concealer on my dark circles, and smoothed on some lip gloss. I sprinted down the stairs, nearly tripping over the bouncer who was guarding the velvet ropes of VIP like Cerberus guarded the gates to the underworld.
“This must be the lovely Cassie,” a man said just after I’d snuck behind the bar. He and the man sitting next to him were both drinking frothy pink martinis with cherries in them. When they raised their pink glasses to their puckered lips, they extended their pinkies like Miss Manners herself. Impeccably groomed, legs crossed, wrists bent, and heads permanently cocked to the side, the duo was so flaming I was afraid the bar might actually catch on fire.
“Yup, my partner in crime,” Jake said.
“Love your lip gloss, cutie pie,” one of them said. “It’s Nars Baby Doll, isn’t it?”
“Um, yeah. Actually, it is.”
“I knew it!” he squealed, clapping his hands excitedly.
“And your bronzer!” the other man exclaimed, bubbling with excitement. “Don’t tell me—Laura Mercier! I love her products. You know what they say, bronzer’s all fun and games until you look like you’ve been hit in the head with a pumpkin! Oh, but not Laura’s bronzer. It’s so natural. It looks great on you!”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, grabbing a Budweiser out of the cooler, twisting the top off, and taking a long satisfying gulp. Normally, in the beginning of the night when the lights were still turned up and Shalina was stalking behind every corner, I would never drink so openly, but I was already too drunk, tired, and devastated to care. Besides, it was my last night. What was she going to do, fire me?
“Cassie,” Jake said, noting my brazen Bud-drinking before the clock had even struck ten. “This is David Goldstein and Todd Silverman, the owners.”
“What?!” I gasped, almost dropping my
beer into the ice bin. These were the ominous owners, who watched us all with their evil eyes in order to protect their profits and interests? They looked so harmless. I felt like Dorothy must have when she peered behind the curtain to discover that the almighty Wizard of Oz was nothing more than a feeble old man.
I tried hard to match their enthusiasm. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Likewise!” they warbled in unison.
“It really is so great to meet you, Cassie,” David went on. “We’ve been watching you all summer on the cameras, and you always look so adorable in your little uniform. Great legs. Are you a dancer? Your calves are divine.”
“Uh . . . thanks.” All summer long I’d pictured the owners as big, scary Mafioso-type men from Long Island, watching my every move on camera, ready to drop the hatchet at any point if I failed to go back to the register and account for every single drink I made. Instead, they’d been watching me more like the Fab 5 did at the end of every episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Shalina stalked up to the bar and snapped her fingers, calling “Jake, Cassie, over here!”
Reluctantly we both trudged over. “I’ll make this brief,” she started. “I know you probably both think tonight’s ‘anything goes’ since it’s the last night of the season. I just wanted to let you know that we’ve hired a bigger team of spotters and beefed up the camera and security systems. We’ll be watching everything in real time, and if anything underhanded or illegal is going on or so much as a dollar is missing, the perpetrator will be escorted directly to the police station and will never work in the Hamptons again.”
I just stared at her dully. This was typical Shalina fare—never once thanking any of us for working our asses off all summer to line her pockets with cash, but instead threatening us. Hamptons rumor had it that employees in the clubs would drink or steal or do drugs right behind the bar on the last shift of the summer season, since they could no longer be fired. Little did she know that all those things had been going on right under her nose (or up other people’s noses) all summer long.
I hung my head and took my place behind the bar. At the rate my night was going, I would be on Prozac by morning.
The crowds continued to file in. Even as I started making drinks, I kept both eyes pinned to the door, praying fervently that James would show up at any second to apologize, tell me he loved me, and save me from my misery. I felt dazed and torn apart—the events of the clambake played a slow torturous loop over and over in my mind.
“Hey, sweetheart!” Burberry Plaid Man’s annoying voice interrupted. “Let me get two Gooses with cranberry, three Ketel Red Bulls, a Sapphire and soda, and a Tanqueray tonic.”
I grabbed seven cups, but by the time I filled them with ice, I’d already forgotten the order. “Two Gooses with Red Bull and a Ketel tonic and what else?”
“No,” he said impatiently. “You got it all screwed up. It’s two Gooses with cranberry . . .”
“Let’s do a shot,” I yelled to Jake, ignoring Burberry Plaid Man altogether.
Jake looked mildly amused. He grabbed the bottle of Patrón and poured us each a hearty dose of tequila.
“Let’s do another one,” I said after I’d sucked the first one down.
“Relax, tiger. I don’t think you need another shot,” Jake said. “You’re already drunk.”
“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” I slurred. “Fine. Who needs you? I’ll do one by myself.” I filled a plastic cup with about four ounces of tequila and slammed it. I savored the burn of it going down—for the briefest moment, it took my mind off my misery. The numbing effect of my shock was starting to wear off, and at the moment, I didn’t want to feel anything. For the first time, I could understand the incessant drinking of Finton’s regulars who came in night after night and drank by themselves.
The music seemed to get really quiet, and the lights started to smear across my vision. Burberry Plaid Man and the other patrons reaching over the bar and waving cash looked like they were moving in slow motion. Their faces seemed distorted—their lips looked like melted wax sliding off their faces as they shouted drink orders. My night had only just begun, and it was already a throbbing blur, even worse than my surreal car ride over. There were so many digits already marked on my “cheat sheet,” I might as well have been taking the money directly from the customers and putting it right into my wallet. But truthfully, I didn’t know where any of the money was. I’d been tossing some of it right into the tip jar and ringing some stuff in. I was in no shape to keep accurate records, and I knew my register would be dramatically over or under at the end of the night. Plus, I kept getting in Jake’s way.
“Move, Cass! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Jake?” I whined.
“What?”
“I don’t feel good. I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Hurry up.”
Holding on to the railing for support, I slowly pulled myself up the steps to the bathroom one by one.
“I’m sorry, VIP only,” the bouncer said, barely looking down at me.
“I work here!” I shouted through clenched teeth, pushing past him.
VIP was already jumping, and even though I knew James was still at the clambake, habit forced me to scan the tables of the privileged for his strapping form. I hurtled myself through the door that led to the employee bathroom and the office.
“Cassie!” Teddy called from behind his desk.
“What?”
“I need to talk to you for a minute.”
“I can’t. Jake needs me downstairs and I have to go to the bathroom.” I was hyperconscious of my speech, worried that Teddy would detect my obvious drunken slur.
“Just get in here. It’ll only take a second.”
I stumbled in and found Teddy leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk. The latest issue of Variety magazine was spread open in front of him.
“I just wanted to congratulate you,” he said, gesturing toward the opened magazine. “I read that you guys are selling your screenplay to Rising Star Entertainment. That’s amazing!”
I looked up, my eyes question marks.
“Check it out,” he said, handing me the magazine. There in bold black print under the Film heading in “The Week” section of Variety read:
“Rising Star Entertainment is in the process of negotiating a deal with novice producer James Edmonton of Catch 22 productions to produce “Glass Slipper,” a Cinderella story about a dejected prostitute in New York City. Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddy Prinze Jr. attached to star.
A wave of shock crested over me. Jennifer Love Fucking Hewitt? Freddy Fucking Prinze Jr.? And there was no mention of my name?
All of a sudden the air felt thin, as though I’d arrived at the top of Mount Everest and I couldn’t suck in enough oxygen. My lungs ached for air, my vision clouded. I stood staring at the two sentences in front of me, any happiness or sense of accomplishment that the summer had sown melting out of me and collecting in a puddle at my feet. My mind wouldn’t accept what I was reading, but the inevitable conclusion couldn’t be denied. The proof was right there on the page. On top of inexplicably ripping my heart out, James had stolen my screenplay and was selling it to Rising Star Entertainment.
I dropped the magazine and walked zombielike into the bathroom. I locked the door and finally exploded into tears. I picked up the air freshener can and hurled it at the mirror, hoping a real crash would somehow take the sting out of my world crashing down around me. But the glass didn’t even shatter, and the clatter of the can as it fell to the floor was drowned out by the thud-thud-thud of the DJ’s bass.
I stumbled out of the bathroom and down the stairs past a girl offering to give the bouncer a blow job if he would let her and her two friends into VIP. I didn’t know why I was headed back behind the bar in my emotionally decimated state. Maybe because that was the only place I felt safe.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Jake roared when I walked
back behind the bar. He didn’t break his rhythm, holding six plastic cups in his right hand, smoothly pouring five Ketel on the rocks with his left. There were customers lined up ten deep, and even Jake, the head bartender himself, couldn’t handle the volume.
“Three cosmos, two Jack and Cokes, and a glass of champagne!”
“Two Amstels!”
“Six shots of Cuervo chilled and two So Co limes!”
“Ketel tonic, Captain Diet, Stoli Ras and seven, a Bud, and a sloe comfortable screw!”
Their cries blended together in a devastating roar of drink orders that further clouded my mind. How was I supposed to serve this angry mob when I could hardly stand up? The congested air, the loud music, and the drinking made everything seem so surreal. For a moment I couldn’t discern if this was really happening. I didn’t know if I was asleep or awake.
“What are you doing? Get to work!” Jake ordered. I grabbed two beers out of the cooler for a young guy in a gray Izod pullover vest.
“Twenty dollars,” I burbled. My words were colliding like bumper cars.
The guy handed me a bill and I walked over to the register and rang it in.
Then I started assisting another customer.
“Hey!” the man in the pullover shouted. “I gave you a fifty. You owe me another thirty bucks!”
At a snail’s pace, I shuffled over to the register and took out $30 for the guy. My brain and heart were throbbing to the rhythm of the bass in the pulsing hip-hop. It felt like I’d swallowed one of Spark’s speakers.
When I looked up again, the customers seemed to have multiplied, as though they were undergoing mitosis right before my very eyes.
“What do you want?” I slurred to a double-processed blond who had used way too much Clarins self-tanner.